Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain would head the special committee for implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award for newspaper employees. This decision was unanimously reached at the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information that met here with its Chairperson Begum Rehana Aleem Mashhadi in the chair. The committee was tasked to prepare its report on the matter and subsequently submit it to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information within next three weeks.
The members of the committee, who also attended the meeting, included Begum Mehnaz Rafi, Gul-e-Farkhanda, Dr Noor Jehan Panezai, Bushra Rehman, Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi, Dr Syed Javed Hussain Mian, Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, Shahida Akhtar Ali, Rukhsana Bangash, Fauzia Habib and Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid.
Those who attended the meeting on special invitation included Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Muhammad Hanif Abassi, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Senator Tariq Azeem, Sherry Rehman and Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli.
The representatives of the journalists unions also attended the meeting that had the agenda to consider the matter of the Wage Board Award.
Islamabad Chief Commissioner Khalid Pervez, Islamabad AIG Shahid Nadeem Baloch and SSP Captain Liaquat Ali Khan (Retd) also attended the meeting on special invitation.
The meeting was unanimous that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain may head the special committee on the implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award to which he accepted.
The special committee would also include Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid, Science and Technology Minister Nouraiz Shakoor, Housing and Works Minister Syed Safwanullah, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli and Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis Tariq Azeem Khan as members from the government side.
While the representatives from Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), All Pakistan Newspaper Employees Confederation (APNEC), All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE), Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ), Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club would represent the newspaper industry.
While taking up another item on the agenda, the chairperson of the committee said that the meeting condemns the incident of manhandling of journalists by the police and the standing committee expresses sympathies with the journalists.
She urged the police officers to follow the code of human ethics and human rights while implementing any orders given to them by the high ups.
The Islamabad chief commissioner on behalf of the civil administration and police of the Capital Territory regretted the incident and assured that there will be no such reoccurrence.
Shujaat said that the government would withdraw the FIR and if the newspaper owners express hesitation to meet with the damages caused to the equipment of the media people during the incident then the matter would be considered at their level.
He said to express solidarity with the journalists the next World Press Freedom Day would be observed in a democratic manner whereby ensuring presence of the members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information.
Sheikh Rashid taking part in the proceedings said that the present government for the first time in the country's history had taken stand for the implementation of the Wage Board Award for the newspaper employees and it would continue to back this just cause.
He said though this matter was related to the Labour and Manpower Ministry, but the Information and Broadcasting Ministry took firm stand on it and took forward their cause in effective and forceful manner.
The members of the committee actively participated in the proceedings and gave a number of suggestions to help in resolving the matter for implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award.
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